


Doing the Right Thing

by prosopopeya



Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-07
Updated: 2014-11-07
Packaged: 2018-02-24 10:45:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,410
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2578757
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/prosopopeya/pseuds/prosopopeya
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A short post 10x03 reaction fic, in which Castiel witnesses Dean decide to do the right thing after so long. (Sam and Hannah are only mentioned.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Doing the Right Thing

Although Castiel has to get back to helping Hannah with her mission, he finds it difficult to want to leave the bunker. He hasn't spent much time here, comparatively, but it still feels like home, as close to a home as he'll get on Earth. He attributes that entirely to the Winchesters, two broken men living their broken lives but doing the best they can. He should leave when Sam returns, and he does go back out to the car, but it's only to invite Hannah inside. If she would have pressed him, he would've left, but she agrees that they can rest for the evening, stay with Dean and Sam, before their mission calls them away again. 

Dean comes out of his room to eat, and it turns out Sam doesn't have to force feed him; though he's certainly seen Dean eat with more relish than this, he does finish what Sam brings him. He retreats back to his room soon after Sam starts to get drunk, as he'd wanted. Castiel asks Hannah to stay with Sam while he goes to check on Dean. Secretly, he hopes that they might bond. If Hannah is to be his companion for a time, why shouldn't Hannah and Sam befriend one another?

Dean is much the same as he was earlier, sitting on his bed, pretending as if he isn't looking through the pictures that Castiel can clearly see on the nightstand. 

"You... look better," he offers, and Dean smiles, sort of.

"Yeah, well. My heart won't in ten years, but it felt good." 

Castiel nods, and there's a silence that he's not sure he should call awkward or not. 

"I am glad you're back, Dean," he says into that silence, coming forward a step. Dean draws up, seems to draw in on himself and turn away, but it's a move that's so familiar to Castiel by now that he finds he doesn't even mind. He's patient as he watches Dean turn back around, away from him, back to that nightstand, and tap his finger on the pictures at the top. 

"I need to take a picture." 

Though Castiel is confused, he can't see how taking pictures is a bad thing, one to be so embarrassed about.

"Of course. If you have a camera, I -- "

"No, I mean." Dean's half-laughing as he turns around, and he's already pulling his phone out. "I need a picture of you. Just -- Come here." 

Castiel moves forward as beckoned, into Dean's personal space. It's odd to be invited into it, to find himself as near to him as he was in the past when Dean would snap at him to back up. Dean's arm finds its way around his back, and so Castiel sets his hand against his waist. The angle is awkward, but he smiles when commanded. He might imagine it, but Dean seems to hesitate, his gaze moving over Cas's smile like he's surprised he has one, before he finally takes the picture.

He moves away immediately, turning back around and mumbling a thanks. Normally, Castiel might say that it was nothing, but the slope of Dean's shoulders tells him that it wasn't nothing.

"Dean," he says softly, and he starts to reach out to him, to touch his shoulder, but Dean shakes his head, cutting him off from whatever else he might want to say. Castiel is at a loss for words, though, so perhaps that's for the best. 

Slowly, Dean's hand comes up to Castiel's, and it hovers for a moment before he sets his hand down, a press of warm skin against Castiel's own.

Far too quickly, he takes his hand away again.

"Think I'm pretty tired now, Cas. I'm going to hit the hay."

Blinking, confused, Castiel nods, though he doesn't move away. He feels a little cheated, like he was given a glimpse of something that was just as quickly taken away from him again. 

"Dean... I could watch over you." In the past, Dean has never liked that option, but that doesn't mean that Castiel doesn't still want to and probably still will later on in the night, once Dean's asleep. What he's expecting is a quick rebuff, but instead Dean takes an unsteady breath.

"You think you want to waste your time with that? Or you want to make sure I'm not going to get up and be that thing again?" 

"Of course not, Dean. I -- " He breaks off, looking away, looking for the words, and once he finds them, he sees Dean has half-turned, and is giving Castiel a pleading look that he realizes mirrors Castiel's own. "I missed you, Dean." 

It seems to break something in Dean's frame, and his shoulders slump again, a kind of pain twisting up in his face. That hadn't been what Castiel wanted to happen, but human emotions are so complex, and there can be joy, and love, and relief mixed up in pain; they don't make sense, they're chaos, but Castiel has come to relish them and what he's learned from them.

Just when he thinks Dean is about to say something, he comes forward instead, his hand reaching out to Castiel's face, and then he kisses him. It's light, and Castiel stays still, stunned, until Dean's fingers slip around to his hair and he presses firmer, almost insisting that Castiel _do_ something. It's then he realizes that he wants to; he wants to put his hand back on Dean's back and kiss him with an intensity that surprises even Castiel. How long had that lain dormant? 

Dean exhales against his cheek -- a sigh of relief? -- and he pulls Castiel closer, tighter, kisses him deeper, but all of it feels far too much like a goodbye. Castiel starts to push back against that idea, to pull Dean closer and deepen the kiss even further, but Dean steps back, slowly letting his hand fall down Castiel's arm until there's cold air between them.

"You gotta go, Cas. You got your -- angel mission, or whatever." 

That's true, he does, and Castiel feels an obligation to the angels who want to stay on Earth, but how can he want to leave Dean now? He steps forward to say as much, but Dean holds up his hand first.

"I can't. I can't -- do more than that right now, Cas. I..." He takes a deep breath, closes his eyes, tries to speak again and gives up. 

Castiel's shoulders slump now, and he nods, not understanding, but accepting. Dean sighs heavily again and starts pulling the blankets down on his bed, getting ready to sleep like he said he was going to. Before he gets too far, he glances over his shoulder at Castiel, and then nods to a chair in the corner of the room. It's the first time he's ever invited Castiel to watch over him, and Castiel looks at the chair. 

He starts to move toward it, but instead he comes around the other side of the bed. Dean's watching him as Castiel sits down, removes his shoes, and then leans back against the headboard, his hands folded over his lap. He raises an eyebrow to Dean, challenging him on this, but Dean only laughs, a broken sound, and starts to pull his own shoes off. Castiel's sure that's the end of it once Dean settles down under the covers, and there's even a full minute of silence in which he assumes Dean is starting to go to sleep, when he opens up one eye.

"Are you seriously going to sit there all night?" 

Castiel had thought that was what Dean wanted, when Dean lifts up the covers and starts tugging on Castiel's pant leg.

"Lay down, you weirdo." 

That's how Castiel finds himself with Dean's arm over his chest, his breath coming warm on his neck. Dean falls asleep surprisingly fast, but that _might_ be because Castiel uses what grace he has to help him sleep without any dreams; he shouldn't, should probably conserve the stole grace, but he has to say that it's worth it to see Dean sleeping so peacefully. Even though Castiel is better for the time being, he finds himself wanting to join Dean, getting pulled in that direction by desire and comfort, rather than by need. He closes his eyes and drifts off to something like sleep. Although he doesn't dream, being aware of Dean beside him all night is pleasant enough to be like one.


End file.
